


kept fridged well

by seokjynerso



Category: Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Boredom, Cryogenics, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internal Conflict, Medical Experimentation, Mentions of Cancer, Suicidal Thoughts, an unmeasurable amount of it, mild sanity slippage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 14:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13638195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seokjynerso/pseuds/seokjynerso
Summary: ❝ for now, the red army doesn't have the technology to save you. but don't worry, i know another way out. do you want to live, tom? ❞to tord, tom had aged like milk一better kept refrigerated.





	kept fridged well

What does an eternity look like?

It's like standing before your window at day and closing your eyes. Your eyelids is enough to shield you from the sun, yet they aren't truly opaque. Remnants of light would filter through thin skin, and instead of total darkness, you would see ghosts of warm colours. Look a little longer and you would also see something beautiful一a sparkling, shifting pattern of stars or bursts of fuzzy fireworks. They're what scientists call 'phosphenes', the moving visual sensations caused by electrical charges in the retina that continue on even after the eyes are closed.

Phosphenes are the body's own light show. These visual effects are worth taking some time to admire.

Tom, however, was getting increasingly sick of them.

What could've been a brilliant view to him had become an agoraphobic expanse of glimmering white sea as wide as aeons and as deep as the pit of hell. Infinite, threatening to swallow his entire being. He'd been rising and falling with its waves for weeks or months or maybe years. Fighting for another breath and to stay afloat was taking a mental toll on him.

The white sea was all he could see. Here, the sun doesn't shine. Tom's source of light was a small florescent bulb. Even with his eyelids kept shut, he could tell that it was placed right above him.

It was the only thing that gave the narrow, 7 foot tall cryostasis chamber a sense of illumination.

"It's for your own good," said Tord, or at least, the evil warmonger named Red Leader wearing Tord's skin. Gone were any traces of the silent, shy but quick-thinking Norwegian boy. The captor in deep blue uniform standing over Tom as he lay on the cold, hard operating table was a stranger. An abomination with vicious, angry red scars criss-crossing his face and neck.

"I can't afford to let you die," Tom heard a husky, low whisper piercing through his left ear with the callous, sharp coldness of a scalpel. His words formed a statement of false benevolence that left a horrible taste in Tom's mouth. He felt like throwing up. "The cancer in your eyes had metastasised to your brain." Tord continued on, sighing, "The most my treatment can give you is one or two years."

There was a mass of cells deep growing fast and uncontrollable inside his hollow eyes, eating its way through his eye sockets and into his brain. He was collapsing from within.

"I need you for longer than that. Secondary brain cancer from ocular lymphoma is rare and the prognosis is poor. For now, the Red Army doesn't have the technology to save you. But don't worry, I know another way out." A sly smile shifted the lines of Tord's gashes upwards. "Do you want to live, Tom?" he asked.

_Not as your attack dog, you commie bastard!_

He would've spit in Tord's face if he wasn't forcefully paralyzed.

"There's this condition named therapeutic hypothermia, currently used in medicine to treat cardiac arrests by lowering a person's body temperature. The cold will slow down your bodily functions, especially your heart and your metabolic system. This can halt the progress of your cancer for a limited time." Tord pointed a metallic finger to a direction, "I already have a chamber prepared. You'll be put in a cryostatic sleep soon."

To Tord, Tom had aged like milk一better kept refrigerated.

In the beginning of the process, Tom was given a steady dose of painkillers and two types of anaesthetics: an intravenous paralytic to surpress the body's involuntary shivering and a gaseous sedation that would ease him into a long, deep sleep. The former worked smoothly.

The latter failed.

Tom remained fully aware of his surroundings, but frozen.

His eyes were perpetually shut, yet the peaceful slumber never came. Being in stasis means that he would need less sustenance to survive. The life support system had provided him with an enough supply of energy so he no longer needed to sleep or eat.

And that's how Tom ended up lying awake in a cryostasis chamber with only a scribbled note stuck to the door with a fridge magnet serving as a reminder for Tord to unfreeze him when the time comes.

He was Snow White with a cruel twist, imprisoned in a glass coffin for what felt like an eternity. He couldn't move. He couldn't talk. He couldn't see anything but light trickling through his eyelids and he could hear nothing but his slowed-down heartbeats. But he still had his own mind. He could still think to pass the time. Play his favourite songs by memory. He liked the ska band Five Iron Frenzy, right? He could entertain himself by listening to their whole discography. Pretend to sing along while rocking out with Susan. Play his favourite movies at the back of his head. Relive the best adventures he had with his friends. Break the world record for number counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...

But the mind can only do so much without any input from the outside world. One day, he would run out of content to entertain himself and his mind, once his best friend, would turn on him and become his torturer. Collapsing him under the burden of his own maddening thoughts. Boredom is a torture. How much longer should he wait? A month? A year? Ten years? Half a century? Will Tord even keep his promise? Or did he make up everything so his long-time enemy can die in the most excruciating way?

He missed the days he could just numb all his pain with alcohol. He yearned to feel the satisfying burn on his tongue and throat. He yearned for the warm glow to spread from his chest to the tips of his fingers and toes. He yearned for a flask of Smirnoff to steal him away from this hell, even for a brief moment. But Tom only had his own self now, and he's not a company he would enjoy. The one he hated the most next to Tord was himself. The failure whose cells can't even divide correctly.

He wanted to scream but nothing would escape his throat. He wanted to cry but his tears had become one with the ice. He wanted to break this chamber into pieces. He wanted to hear Matt's annoying voice again. He wanted to make stupid puns with Edd again.

If this is living, he didn't want to live anymore.

Tom tried holding his breath so he could suffocate. Happiness blossomed in his heart when he could feel the muscles in throat tightening, but it quickly evaporated when he realised that his nose and throat were empty. He'd never breathed on his own all along. Something else was doing the breathing for him. The life support system filled his lungs with air against his wishes.

This bloody failure can't even die.

_Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light._

Suddenly, two verses of a poem he'd read in secondary school resurfaced in his memory along with an epiphany. Perhaps he was right about the failed anaesthetics being a part of Tord's plan. The Red Leader wanted to break Tom's mind in order to make him easier to be brainwashed into the perfect secret weapon. Tom swore to himself that he wouldn't give in and allow Tord to savour his victory. He would fight to keep his sanity intact. He would fight to live so he could tear Tord limb from limb once he got out. After all, he was more than human. Compared to his strength, Tord was as frail as a butterfly's wings.

The sea of white that had become Tom's world could also be an infinite canvas, unbounded by space or time. From his mind, he conjured a thick black outline and drew a blob-like human with two dots and a line for a face. As his own creation, the human blob could be subjected to his every whim. He could inflict it with any amusing torment imaginable. He could make it get run over by a train or step on a turtle-shaped mine. The possibilities are endless.

Here, Tom would reign supreme as an omnipotent god and Tord would still be a little bitch.

Why should he be afraid of the nothingness? He'd been there before. He'd been through the same thing before he was born一alive but floating in stillness, life maintained by a tube connected to his body. He was back in the protective environment of a mother's womb, waiting to be reborn from the brink of death.

His cold body reached out for an amniotic warmth, the love from the great mother of the universe.

_It's okay. I won't hurt you._

A deep, soothing voice comforted him in return. Tom felt like falling apart. He wasn't ready for this. After living years and years and years and years of his life alone, someone finally broke through. He lapped every second of it up like a weary traveller lost in a desert finally finding an oasis.

_You can trust me._

Upon a second listen, it dawned on Tom that the voice was achingly distant, yet familiar一a forbidden fruit. It was Edd's voice, low, calm and remorseful. In it, Tom could find nothing else than compassion. He'd never been this happy his whole life. Not that he was a happy person to begin with, but what he was feeling was wild, dizzying and beautiful. At last, he was no longer alone. Pieces of his old life were coming back.

_You can surrender now, Tord. I promise that I won't lay even a finger on you._

For the first time, the mention of his enemy's name didn't set him alight with hatred. It only solidified his conviction that he wasn't hallucinating things. The voice was as real as the light above his head and the tubes in his flesh. Edd was there, only a few metres away. Freedom was only a few metres away. To top all that, his ears were spoiled with a music from heaven, the sound of something heavy collapsing, followed by Tord repeating I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. The proud leader of an army had been brought down to his knees, sobbing like the pathetic piece of garbage he was. Tom wished he could see the filthy commie begging for forgiveness.

_You're always forgiven. No matter what, you're still my friend._

Edd could've ended it all with a simple headshot or a blast of an alien laser gun to the face, but no, even after all these years, he was too kind. Too optimistic. Too naïve. If only Edd knew the full extent of Tord's crimes, he would agree that the brutal Red Leader deserved a fate worse than that.

Way worse.

_Now, let's get out of here before the Rebel soldiers can see you._

Wait, no一

Frantically, Tom concentrated all of his mind to listen to the conversations happening outside of the cryostasis chamber word by word, but they grew more and more unintelligible as three sets of footsteps grew quieter and quieter before fading into absolute silence.

_Uh, did you guys just forget something?_

_Guys?_

_Hello?_


End file.
